One More Year

In 1980 I was fed up with nursing and threw away all my pins. I resigned for a year - of course never to darken a hospital door again - but kept returning.  I also return to our five year class reunion, as often as possible. But today’s luncheon was one more year for the RGH School of Nursing luncheon. The 45th RGH School of Nursing Alumnae luncheon. More than one more class, but classes from 1949 through each year until the School closed in 1972. We were all girls then, many from farming communities throughout the province. Now we are scattered across Canada, the U.S. and even globally. Our careers have taken us to the North, into the military and war zones, at the bedside from birth to old age, public health, and into universities to teach other young people. Today, we were as those girls in the ’60’s. But our numbers grow smaller. We honour those that are no longer with us. Our hair is streaked with white, some more than others. We share about our families and fuss about how nursing has changed in ways that are different. But we are the same and will meet again next September to share a meal, our school song, memories and lots of laughter. 

“True friends are never apart, maybe in distance but never in heart.”

~ Helen Keller

From Class Reunion to Alumnae Luncheon

We weren’t finished. Our class reunion was, but today the Regina General Hospital School of Nursing annual gathering met for lunch. On hold during the Covid 19 pandemic, this was our first one back: the 44th Annual RGH School of Nursing Luncheon. In past years, it was a Saturday night dinner, then a Sunday brunch and today a Sunday luncheon). Two hundred and twenty one nurses sat down to a delicious meal in the Ballroom at the Doubletree Hotel. It was not an easy task to get us all seated and quiet for introductions! Herding cats comes to mind. 

From the classes of 1949 to 1953 all the way to the last classes in 1972, we were an amazing gathering! Several of our classes celebrated reunions or caught up on reunions missed due to Covid 19. Today we lunched with nurses we learned from and worked with; looking for our ‘big sisters’, instructors and colleagues. ‘Big sisters’ were from the year previous to teach us the ropes of the Nurses Residence we lived in. Many of us had no clue who our big sisters were!! Some were able to reconnect with a big sister. Not all had maintained that relationship when life and circumstance interfered.

It was a great weekend. In five years, the RGH Nursing class of 1968 will meet again - location to be determined. In one year, the RGH School of Nursing will meet for a Sunday luncheon, or brunch - that’s to be determined as well.

Thanks go to the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel staff for a comfortable well run weekend for us all.

“……the hours are long, the work hard, and the pay inadequate to the 

amount of concentrated energy required. A nurse, now does not view 

her profession dispassionately. It is too much a part of her.”

~ Monica Dickens

55 Year Reunion ~ A Story Space

Tiny nurses caps made by
one of our classmates

A really vibrant story space! We were and still are so fortunate to have been one of the 'three year classes’ to share a residence; to learn our craft; to work together and best of all to share our nursing fears and woes with each other as we learned. This weekend we have come back together to rehash so much of the past, the years in-between and being present with one another again. Tonight we shared a fine dining experience that would have been impossible on the pittance we received in training. To top the evening off our maitre de asked us for a song he had been told we all knew. Poor man blushed when we sang the whole song beginning with “We are the General girls, we wear our hair in curls…….” The ending is not particularly polite ~ not bawdy, just not polite in today’s world. A bit of stumbling over the second verse, but we did remember it as children remember nursery rhymes.

“I have never had a problem or worry, either big or small, that couldn’t be 

made better by meeting with a girlfriend and talking about it over coffee.”

~Tilda Shalof, The Making of a Nurse

Reunion Fellowship

Regina General Hospital to the right
Nurses Residence at the back

Faces unchanged but still the same ~

conversation flowed like pebbles along a shore telling of

exploits and experience wrapped in the warmth of fellowship

while photos and yearbooks examined for classmates we miss, memories of rigid or kind instructors, student pranks and residence life.

At the buffet line, the bubbling chatter merely slowed.

“We all take different paths in life but no matter where we go, 

we take a little of each other everywhere.”

~ Tim McGraw

The Hug Effect

There are always at least two sides to everything. This recent, very wonderful, weekend is no different. Today, although I woke with an incredible allergy headache - reunion, perfume and flowers do it every time - I participated in my walking group in the morning and after lunch did an hour of cardio in the pool at an Aquafit class. Granted, the walk was a bit shorter because we chose a different route. I took a couple of extra bus rides to extend my energy because I did feel pretty tired. I usually feel quite exhausted after such a day, sit down and rest a moment before heading home and then crashing for the evening with Netflix on and feet up on the sofa. Strangely that didn’t happen. I set out immediately, ran a couple of errands and came home to straighten things up in my little home.

Then it hit me. Hugs. That’s what happened to me. Hugs! Everyday for three days at the Class Reunion, there were hugs. Not just the side to side hugs, although there were quite a few, but the real heart to heart, sincere, ‘I am so glad to be with you’ hugs. There is research out there that says that hugs help all kinds of things. Huffington Post and Psychology today are both resources of this research. There were fifty-one nursing classmates and everyday someone hugged someone. We laughed with each other and were just plain silly - mature kind of silly of course. A oneness of caring spread through out any room we were in.

So what’s the down side of this? Well, if a class reunion only occurs every five years and it takes an absolute crowd of good friends to reset my ‘feel great’ status, I think I might have a problem. What if the hug-effect wears off before the next reunion in five years!? Thank goodness my kids know how to give and take amazing, loving, sincere hugs.

I think that all of us, anywhere, have gotten maybe just a bit too cautious about hugging each other in that sincere caring fashion. I’m really no different. So in this next five years, my challenge is to be mindful of that strange feeling that sets an awkward distance. As I write this, I also know that just hugging anyone, anywhere at anytime is not necessarily a good thing. We pay attention to climate change, to the tragedies of the world, to the beautiful people, to money when a simple hug on a regular basis may be what each of us, and the world, needs.

“A hug makes you feel good all day.”

~  Kathleen Keating

Closing a Chapter

Our RGH Nursing Class of 1968 was incomplete

     our stories were not ~

We honoured those that left this world too early

Letters were read from those unable to be with us.

Names and stories were written in yearbooks and a journal

to travel to homes, to be delivered to a classmate.

Amid laughter, shuffling and cheering

a ‘class picture’ was taken

over and over and over

on many cell phones and one good camera ~

one patient husband and then hotel staff enlisted. 

Silence has fallen ~

    for tonight.

Many will travel in the early morn,

visiting and laughter will continue 

for those of us lingering a bit longer

savouring the last of this 50 Year reunion.

Mindful of the gift of this weekend,

we each return home with new memories.

“No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship 

of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth.”

~ Robert Southey

Coming Together!

A memento from our 10 year reunion

Excitement is building!

Nursing class of 1968 arrive in a few days! Regina General Hospital prairie ‘girls’ in Victoria for our 50th reunion! A phone call Sunday evening with the energetic organizer of this event brings it all closer…and closer… and closer!

“Time does not erase the friendships and camaraderie 

you developed at a time when you were developing your life path.”

~ From Memoir Writer’s Journal (Blog) by Kathy Pooler

A Gathering - The 40th Annual Alumnae Dinner RGH School of Nursing

The tables were laid with linens and silver cutlery. Water glasses filled and crockery all placed just so. From outside the vast dining room, a hum and buzz rippled, punctuated with laughter and surpised greetings, growing louder and filling the room as nurses from across Canada, from the United States and even two from Africa entered chatting and visiting with classmates not seen for weeks or months and, very many, for years.

From the Nursing Class of 1948 through the intervening years to 1972 (many of the years graduating two classes), nurses, both retired and many still working, returned to Regina, gathering in this dining room to meet and greet, laugh and reminisce, and catch up with changes both personally and in the profession of nursing.

All had been nursing students, young prairie girls learning to perform tasks at the same time providing the healing power of touch. Some stayed on at the Regina General Hospital School of Nursing and became instructors for those that young nurses that followed.

The evening’s speakers spoke of communicating nursing’s message farther afield:

~ a nurse author, a graduate of ‘the other’ school of nursing in Regina, writes about histories of nursing and of schools of nursing in Saskatchewan

~ an international nurse educator, a graduate of the Class of 1963 RGH School of Nursing, aids in developing nursing education in Africa and Cuba.

In those times when the nursing profession may begin to seem bit tarnished, I only need attend with this laughing continuum of mothers and grandmothers, sisters and aunts, family members and community members to know that I am one of a legion of truly caring women (not to mention very mishievous).

An Aside: There were no young men in RGH School of Nursing classes. Young men, for many years now, have been welcomed into this profession adding dimension and depth with their knowledge and caring. I have had the privilege of working with many of them (some not so young anymore) and have been proud to call them my colleagues in the nursing profession.

“The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that 

they can grow separately without growing apart.”

~ Elizabeth Foley

Walking through Lives Together

A midmorning walk in this prairie town of Moose Jaw with old friends was good for body and spirit.

(That’s some of the group waaay past the steps.)

In the past 24 hours ~ when not getting some sleep! ~

visiting twisted and turned through past and present careers,

health and wellness issues of family, friends and self, 

what addresses have changed

memories of that first nursing year of starched uniforms, black stockings,

room assignments ~ who lived where and with whom

and the brave naivety of the young women entering the adult maelstrom of health care,

to be spun out into brave maturity and entering the next chapter of lives well lived.

Obviously there has not been enough said or discussed,

laughed about and worried over.

A dip in spa waters at Temple Gardens Spa warmed and relaxed us,

our words rippling over the waters without so much as a breeze on such a sunny day

This evening a very civilized buffet supper capped off the day (healthy with requisite desserts, wine and coffee.)

Conversations that ran from September 1965 to 1968 at graduation, carried forward unerringly, telescoping and spiraling at least every five years ~ more or less frequently for some of our class.

Can I call all this communication?

All the words fluttering back and forth

in a hurry to be caught in acoustic butterfly nets

and sent off in some other direction

caroming off of each other as we are taking these walks together.

“Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking.”

~ Antonio Machado